Fall Asleep in Old Japan | The Story of Handmade Paper

The Sleepkeeper: Sleep Stories from History · Oct 21, 2026 · 2h 5m

In the hills west of old Edo, papermakers spent the cold winter months turning mulberry bark into soft, strong sheets of handmade paper. Each sheet would eventually find its way into the ordinary lives of people far beyond the village.

There's no need to follow every step. If you fall asleep somewhere along the way, the paper will carry on without you.

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Tonight: We travel to a quiet papermaking village in early nineteenth-century Japan, where families harvest mulberry bark, work beside cold streams, and dry fresh sheets in the winter sunlight. We follow a bundle of handmade washi paper…